| While it is widely acknowledged that multi-word units constitute a significant part of native speakers'linguistic competence (Hymes, 1992; Jesperson, 1904; Nattinger & DeCarrico, 1992) and that they are of great importance in first language development (Brown, 1973; Clark, 1974; Peters, 1977, 1983; Tomasello, 2003; Wray, 1999), their roles in second/foreign language learning have not been given adequate attention so far.With formulaic sequences (FSs)—a special type of multi-word units, as a focus, this study aims to investigate how Chinese learners of English master these complex expressions in the target language. Specifically, this study addresses four questions: (1) What are the distinctive features of FS use in Chinese EFL learners'spoken English? (2) What are the patterns of FS development in EFL learning in classroom instruction settings? (3) What is the mechanism responsible for manipulating the dual mode system in Chinese EFL learners'oral production? (4) What are the main factors influencing the learning of FSs by Chinese EFL learners?On the basis of literature review, this study first proposed an operational definition of FS and developed a conceptual framework for FS studies. Then, with a corpus-driven multiple-comparison approach, this study analyzed quantitatively as well as qualitatively the FSs in Chinese EFL learners'spoken English.The learner data analyzed in this study are mainly from the Corpus of Oral English Test (COET), which contains the transcripts of the oral production of Chinese EFL learners at three different English proficiency levels: elementary, intermediate and advanced. The native reference corpus is a sample of Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MICASE), which contains around 250,000 running words. The materials in the sample of MICASE are comparable to the data of Chinese advanced learners of English in COET, whether in corpus size, discourse mode, speakers'age or in speakers'educational level. For corpus processing, a suit of computer tools were specifically developed. During data analysis, a series of statistical tests were applied, including Log-likelihood test, T-test, Z-test, and Correspondence Analysis.In response to the research questions, this study has obtained the following findings:(1) By comparing the FSs produced by Chinese advanced learners of English and those favored by native English speakers, this study has shown that Chinese EFL learners'use of FSs displays a complex picture of underuse, overuse and misuse of the target FSs. Further investigations into the underused FSs in terms of form, meaning and function have indicated that the underuse pattern is largely due to the less frequent use of the following types of FSs: formulaic patterns (FPs), i.e. phrases which follow a set pattern but have one or two open slots to be filled; the FSs that convey the delexicalized or metaphorical meanings and the FSs that perform pragmatic functions in oral interactions. But Chinese EFL learners tend to depend heavily on some specific FSs and use massively some learners'idiosyncratic sequences, which are never used by or not acceptable to native English speakers. Even if they use some pragmatic sequences, they do not use these sequences in the same way as native English speakers do.(2) By comparing the FSs produced by Chinese EFL learners at three different English proficiency levels in terms of amount of use, this study has revealed that the general pattern of underuse of FSs in Chinese EFL learners'spoken English is developmental in nature. With the increase of their English proficiency level, Chinese EFL learners make use of more and more FSs in their oral production. A finer-grained analysis of the FSs in COET in terms of form and meaning has shown that with the advancement of EFL learning, Chinese EFL learners become more and more dependent on FPs and the FSs with delexicalized or metaphorical meanings but less and less on formulaic routines (FRs) and the FSs with literal meanings. Both trends gradually approximate to the native speaker level. The development of functional use of FSs displays a more complex picture. Firstly, Chinese EFL learners at different English proficiency levels favor different functional categories of FSs. Secondly, different functional categories of FSs display different developmental trends. With the progression of EFL learning, the discourse-organizing sequences display a continuously rising trend but two U-shaped courses of development with opposite trends are found in the cases of the referential and the interpersonal sequences.(3) Concerning the strategic preference, this study has indicated that Chinese EFL learners have a tendency to use the rule-based system for language production. But ample evidence has shown that they attempt to behave like native English speakers in employing FSs as a strategy for language production. As for the mental storage of FSs, it is found that FSs also constitute a large part of Chinese EFL learners'building materials. But the relative balance of formulaic words to FSs in Chinese EFL learners'mental lexicon is significantly different from that of native English speakers. In addition, the difference is also identified in quality, especially in terms of form, meaning and function.(4) The present study has provided evidence for three key factors that influence FS learning by EFL learners: L1 transfer, language input and EFL learners'English proficiency. Firstly, L1-L2 difference is an important factor accounting for the underuse, the overuse and the misuse of the target FSs. Secondly, the underuse of the pragmatic sequences is closely related to the low coverage of these FSs in learners'dictionaries and their lower frequencies in the textbooks. The effect of EFL learners'English proficiency is evident in the patterns of FS development.Based on these findings, the research discusses some theoretical and pedagogical implications that the present study has for English teaching and learning in the Chinese context. In addition, it offers its limitations and suggestions for future research.
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